LEAF Lesson Guides - Wildland Fire

Wildland Fire Information

Living With Fire (PDF)
Wisconsin DNR publication that provides an overview of the Cottonville Fire, factors affecting wildland fire, fire history, and property protection tips.

Fire Dependent Ecosystems

An overview of 11 fire dependent ecosystems.

Fire has been an important part of forest and grassland ecosystems in central and eastern North America for 25 to 30 million years. Many plants and animals have adapted to survive and flourish after wildland fires. For the past five to six thousand years, half of the state of Wisconsin has been covered by fire-dependant and fire-tolerant ecosystems such as prairies, sedge meadows, oak savannas, and pine barrens. Periodic distributed fire has created a mosaic of ecosystems across the landscape with some ecosystems isolated from wildland fire and others periodically exposed. Wisconsins ecosystem diversity depends on the periodic occurrence of wildland fire.

The following are Wisconsin's fire dependent ecosystems.

Pine Barren

A savanna community characterized by scattered jack pines or less commonly red pines. Sometimes mixed with scrubby Hill's and bur oaks. Interspersed with openings in which shrubs such as hazelnuts and prairie willow dominate. The flora often contains species characteristic of heaths such as blueberries, bearberry, sweet fern, and sand cherry. Also present are dry sand prairie species such as June grass, little bluestem, silky and sky-blue asters, lupine, blazing-stars, and western sunflower. Pines may be infrequent, even absent, in some stands in northern Wisconsin and elsewhere because of past logging, altered fire regimes, and an absence of seed source.

Great Lakes Barren

Great Lakes Barrens exist on only one sandy site on Lake Superior. The dominant trees in this open stand are wind- and fire-deformed red pine trees with white pine also present. The understory consists of dense growths of lichens with scattered thickets of common juniper, early blueberry, and huckleberry. Other common plants are hairgrass, ticklegrass, false-heather, and bearberry.

Oak Barren

Black oak is the dominant tree in this fire-adapted savanna community of dry sites, but other oaks may also be present. Common understory species are lead plant, black-eyed susan, round-headed bush clover, goats rue, june grass, little bluestem, flowering spurge, frostweed, false Solomon's-seal, spiderwort, and lupine. Distribution of this community is mostly in southwestern, central, and west central Wisconsin.  

Central Sands Pine-Oak Forest

A forest community associated with the Central Sands region on dry sites with acid sandy soils. The dominant trees are white, red, and jack pine, oak, and red maple. The understory typically consists of huckleberry, early blueberry, bracken fern, wood anemone, and Penn sedge. 

Northern Dry Forest

A forest community that occurs on nutrient-poor sites with excessively drained sandy or rocky soils. The primary historic disturbance regime was catastrophic fire at intervals of decades to approximately a century. Dominant trees of mature stands include jack and red pines and/or Hill's oak. Large acreages of this forest type were cut and burned during the logging of the late 19th and early 20th century. Much of the land was then colonized by white birch and/or quaking aspen or converted to pine plantations starting in the 1920s. Common understory shrubs are hazelnuts, early blueberry, and brambles. Common herbs include bracken fern, starflower, barren-strawberry, cow-wheat, trailing arbutus, and members of the shinleaf family. 

Southern Dry Forest

Oaks are the dominant species in this upland forest community of dry sites. White oak and black oak are dominant, often with mixtures of red and bur oaks and black cherry. In the well-developed shrub layer, brambles, gray dogwood, and American hazelnut are common. Frequent herbaceous species are wild geranium, false Solomon's-seal, hog-peanut, and woodland sunflower.

Oak Opening

An oak-dominated savanna community in which there is less than 50% tree canopy. Historically, oak openings occurred on wet to dry sites. The few remnants are mostly on drier sites, with the wetter openings almost totally destroyed by conversion to agricultural or residential uses, and by the encroachment of other woody plants due to fire suppression. Bur, white, and black oaks are dominant in mature stands as large, open-grown trees with distinctive limb architecture. Shagbark hickory is sometimes present. American hazelnut is a common shrub, and while the herb layer is similar to those found in oak forests and prairies, with many of the same grasses and forbs present, there are some plants and animals that reach their optimal abundance in the openings. 

Oak Woodland

A forest that is structurally intermediate between Oak Openings and Southern Dry Forest. The tree canopy cover is high, but frequent low-intensity fires and possibly (in pre-settlement times) browsing by herbivores such as elk, bison, and deer kept the understory relatively free of shrubs and saplings. Much additional information is needed but it appears that at least some plants (certain legumes, grasses, and composites among them) reached their highest abundance here.

Dry Prairie

This grassland community occurs on dry soils, usually on steep south or west facing slopes or at the summits of river bluffs with sandstone or dolomite near the surface. Short to medium-sized prairie grasses: little bluestem, side-oats grama, hairy grama, and prairie dropseed, are the dominants in this community. Common shrubs and forbs include lead plant, silky aster, flowering spurge, purple prairie-clover, cylindrical blazing-star, and gray goldenrod.

Mesic Prairie

This grassland community occurs on rich, moist, well-drained sites. The dominant plant is the tall grass, big bluestem. The grasses little bluestem, Indian grass, porcupine grass, prairie dropseed, and tall switchgrass are also frequent. The forb layer is diverse. Common species include the prairie docks, lead plant, heath and smooth asters, sand coreopsis, prairie sunflower, rattlesnake-master, flowering spurge, beebalm, prairie coneflower, and spiderwort.